Vadim Tuzov

Ukranian sculptor, Vadim Tuzov was born in 1965 and moved to Ireland with his wife and two daughters in the late 1980’s, where he has since carved out a highly successful career as a sculptor in bronze. He has exhibited with the Jorgensen Gallery for the past two decades and quickly established himself as the gallery's bestselling sculptor in bronze.

The inspiration for Vadim’s work stretches back to his childhood growing up in a small village, outside Kiev, surrounded by wildlife and large forests. Even as a child he had an innate artistic ability and made his first piece of sculpture, a small wooden horse, when he was age twelve. Vadim first studied art at a local Junior School of Art, before going on to study drawing and sculpture at the National Academy of Visual Arts & Architecture in Kiev. On graduating from university he then worked as a sculpture restorer for many different museums and institutions.

“My first memory of art is from preschool where I made simple drawings and sculpted small soldiers, cowboys and indians. Years later I went to art school. The main subject there was painting and the secondary was sculpting. After a few years I changed the subject to sculpting. When the time came to choose a work place I decided to go to a bronze foundry. There I was introduced to casting in bronze and fell in love with it. Making some pieces from plasticine and seeing their result in bronze was really exciting. At the same time I was accepted to Ukrainian National Academy of Visual Art and Architecture. After graduation I started to work at a State Restoration Workshop. I restored sculptures from various museums across the country”

Vadim’s subject-matter and his forte is primarily wildlife sculpture in bronze, which he captures with masterful observation and skill and with great attention to detail. His understanding of anatomy, and his technical abilities, results in dynamic living sculptures that perfectly capture the grace, elegance and strength of his subjects. He takes, say, a rhinoceros, a grouse, a lapwing, or a weasel and gives it that little twist which perfectly ‘gets’ it. An added bonus with Vadim’s bronze sculpture is his fine attention to detail and the exquisite patination of his bronzes. Each piece in an edition, whilst obviously taking on the same form, is rendered ‘unique’ by the application of a distinct and singular patina. This unique quality of Vadim’s work is further enhanced by the fact that he has now built his own bronze foundry in order to produce his work, so he has complete control over every stage of the bronze casting process, from the initial modelling in clay, to the final patination of the bronze. Another notable feature of Vadim’s bronze sculpture is that he produces very small editions of each piece, with the majority of his pieces limited to editions of three. The reason for this is the fact that he doesn’t like to keep producing the same pieces, over and again, but prefers to constantly challenge himself with new compositions and subject matter.

Vadim has been commissioned numerous times by art collectors, hotels and businesses throughout Ireland to produce large scale sculptures for gardens and outdoor settings. His technical expertise was also in great demand over the years, where he collaborated with many contemporary Irish artists, on large scale public sculpture commissions, when he worked in the Cast Foundry, Dublin.

Vadim’s sculptures are now located in many private collections in Ireland, England, mainland Europe, Asia and the United States.​